Perilous Pleasures (13 page)

“It's time for us to wed,” he said quietly. “These gentlemen here will witness the ceremony.”

“You really wish to wed me?” Surprise made her voice rise unevenly.

“I do.”

Surprise, confusion, and something that might be joy flitted across her face. Would the spell be enough to bind her?

Her eyes darted toward the witnesses who stood huddled against one wall, but when they lighted on MacMinn, Adam's ally just fixed her with a fierce look—one oddly like that of his master, the Dark Lord—and made a sign with his hand—probably some magical gesture his master had told him would ensure her compliance.

She nodded her head almost imperceptibly and turned back to Adam.

The blacksmith then motioned her to rise. She stood carefully, avoiding putting weight on her injured leg. As she pulled herself upright, her ivory satin gown draped itself into heavy folds around her, like the bridal gown that it was. Her rich, nut-brown hair, which had come half unbound in sleep, tumbled down her back in luxurious waves, forming a veil. When her eyes met his they were soft with desire. Even knowing it was only the desire he'd created with his spell, it still moved him. No woman had ever before looked at him with desire like this, of her body, of her heart, and of her soul.

She glanced over to him for reassurance. He clutched his watch like a talisman as the blacksmith joined their hands together and began to intone the words of the ceremony.

“Do you, Zoe Gervais, take this man, Adam Selkirk, Lord Ramsay, to be your lawful wedded husband?”

The words were so familiar. Adam had heard them repeated at many another man's wedding. But this time it was
his
. His throat suddenly felt very dry and he wondered if he'd be able to get the words out when it was his turn to reply.

But it was not his turn to reply. It was Zoe's. And she stood mute.

He must raise his palm in the prearranged signal, to make her give her assent, but before he could, the blacksmith repeated his question, more urgently now. “Do you take this man to be your wedded husband?”

Zoe's eyes darted around the room until they caught those of MacMinn, who nodded at her with a warm smile, as if urging her on. Then she turned back to Adam, her eyes filled with uncertainty. He wanted to reach out and embrace her, to reassure her that as strange as the situation was, she would be all right, but he couldn't. He felt frozen, as if he, too, were under a spell. He couldn't raise his hand. He couldn't compel her. All he could do was meet her eyes and marvel as he did so how luminous and deep they were.

If only he could tell her how truly beautiful she was. She looked to him now like a Madonna painted by a medieval Italian master, with her graceful long neck and those bright eyes, so filled with the powerful emotions she could barely withstand. But she must not withstand them. She must become his bride. The Ancient Ones had commanded it, and his soul cried out that it was right that they had done so. He wanted her so much. If he didn't ensure her compliance now, he'd spend the rest of his life consumed with regret.

But before he could force his reluctant palm to rise, the blacksmith barked, “I haven't got all day, lassie. Do ye wish to wed or no?”

At that, as if the Ancient Ones had slashed through the bonds that held him, Adam raised his palm upward in the prearranged signal where Zoe must see it. He saw her mouth quiver but, even now, she remained silent.

Her strength was equal to that of any magic. She would elude him. He couldn't bear it.

She
must
marry him. And not just for the powers the wedding would bring him. The very strength with which her soul resisted his magic made him want her more. He leaned toward her and whispered in her ear in a tone so low so only she could hear him. “Remember what I pledged to you. I'll give you happiness. I'll keep you safe.”

Her deep brown eyes met his, pure windows into her exquisite soul. Something flickered within them, though what it was, he couldn't say. Then with a tiny shudder she turned to the anvil priest.

“Yes.” Her voice rang through the tiny chamber.

Satisfied, the priest nodded and turned to Adam. “Do you, Lord Ramsay, take this woman to be your wedded wife?”

“I do.”

It was over.

MacMinn was regarding him now with a look of beaming happiness. He must be relieved to know that his master's power would be transmitted to another generation. Then the anvil priest produced a piece of parchment and passed it to each of the witnesses to sign. When they were done, he handed it to Adam, saying, “This will serve as your marriage lines.”

Adam handed him a golden sovereign and tossed the other witness a silver half crown. The men thanked him and quit the chamber. Only MacMinn lingered. “Ye've done all ye need do, laddie,” he said in a low tone. “Ye may leave the rest of it until she's a bit stronger. It was the binding the auld laird called for, before the sun should rise, and ye are bound.”

And then he, too, vanished, leaving Adam alone with his new bride.

H
e steeled himself for what would come next. Now that the ceremony was concluded, Adam had no idea how much power the Dark Lord's spell would maintain over his new bride. He was still holding the watch that he'd used to invoke the spell and Zoe's eyes were still fixed on it. He shoved it back into its pocket.

Released from its power, she brushed a hand over her eyes and sank down onto the edge of the bed.” I must be delirious,” she said at length. “Your surgery has failed and I have become feverish.”

He shook his head no, not trusting himself to speak.

“Yet I don't feel hot,” she said, still in the same tone of wonder. “It feels more as if I am caught up in a dream. How strange it is, to be dreaming and yet to know it
is
a dream.” Her brow furrowed. “It seems so real. Who were those men, and why did it seem like one of them said the words of the marriage ceremony over us?
Am
I delirious?”

He put a gentle hand around her thin shoulders. She didn't resist it, though he could feel a quiver run through her slim frame. “You're not asleep. Nor are you out of your senses. The men were here.”

Her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “But surely I must have misunderstood the words that big man said.”

“You understood all correctly.”

“Then I have
married
you?”

He nodded, prepared to defend himself should she lash out against him, but to his surprise, she merely sank back against her pillow. “This
is
a dream. How very odd. For a moment there I was sure I had awakened.”

He didn't contradict her. She would need time to come to terms with what he'd done. For now, he must find words that would calm her and let her rest. She would need rest to complete her healing and recover the strength that would help her resign herself to what he'd done to her.

But there was little chance she would find rest this night. Just outside their doorway, people thundered up the stairs and milled about on the landing. There were a few drunken shouts, then a piper began to play an old lowland Scots wedding tune.

Word of the wedding must have spread downstairs, and the inn's denizens had decided to celebrate their union in the traditional raucous fashion. Drunken voices called out their congratulations from the hallway.

“Give it to her good, lad!”

“A son in nine months—”

“—Or in six!”

The crowd burst into a gale of raucous laughter.

“Don't be afraid,” he whispered. “I'm here. I'll protect you.” He stroked her cheek with his hand. “It will be all right.”

“I
will
awaken, won't I?” she asked anxiously. “And your spell will wear off, like laudanum?”

“It will be all right,” he repeated, avoiding her question. “I'll stay here with you all night to ensure that all is well.”

He seated himself again on the chair beside her bed, as a piper wailed out the first few notes of a bawdy song about a milkmaid and her lover.

The sound reminded him of the weddings he'd attended in his youth down in the village at Strathrimmon. The same piping had accompanied the unions of the blushing girls and their hearty mates. How he had envied them their simple lives. If only
he'd
been born into a life like that, instead of into the complexities of his own—complexities into which he'd now drawn Zoe, irrevocably.

All too soon he'd have to tell her the truth. About why he'd wed her—and about the curse he bore, as all the men of his line had, for generations. Now that she was his wife, he couldn't keep it from her, much as he would have wished to. At least, now that they were wed, there was hope that when he assumed the Dark Lord's powers, he'd have, at last, the tools he needed to save them from the curse's blight.

But for now, all he could do was to send her back to sleep, using the words he'd implanted in her mind with the Dark Lord's spell. She needed sleep. She needed healing. There would be time enough to explain to her what he had done and why, later, when she was stronger.

He invoked the Word of Power to make her slumber, hoping it would be the last time he'd ever have to use it. It worked, as it always had. She was asleep in moments. But watching beside her, slumped in his uncomfortable chair, he had far less success in getting to sleep himself. If only there were someone to work a spell on
him
.

It was only long after the merrymakers were gone, in the deep silence of that hour that came before the break of dawn, that he finally remembered what else the Dark Lord had told him about the spell, so long ago in France. As powerful as it could be, his teacher had said, it couldn't be used to compel subjects to perform acts they believed would cause harm to themselves.

Adam cast his mind back to the long pause as the anvil priest had waited for Zoe's answer. He'd given her the sign that should have made her speak, but she'd stayed silent, resisting his magic, as the long minutes had ticked by. When, at last, she'd finally given in, was it because she'd been overcome by his spell—or had she made a choice?

She'd given her assent only after he'd repeated his vow. Would she have done so if she truly hated him? Had she wed him against her will, compelled by his magic? Or was the Dark Lord's teaching true? Had it been her choice?

Chapter 9

H
ow strange it was that the dreams induced by Lord Ramsay's spell were so much sharper than those caused by laudanum. Zoe flexed her leg, pleased to find that the gash on her thigh was less painful than it had been the previous day. If only that meant the poison had receded from her blood and that her leg was saved. She lay unmoving for a long time, unable to get up the courage to examine her wound to see if the red streaks were fading.

But as she lay with her eyes closed, avoiding the start of the new day, the past night's dream flooded back into her mind. It was so lifelike, and each detail was so vivid. Nonetheless, it
had
been a dream for all of its startling clarity—a dream with the impossible logic of dreams. For only in a dream would the aloof Lord Ramsay have begged her to marry him.

She let her mind drift over the strange happenings her feverish mind had imagined: the way the chaste lord had beseeched her to accept him, and how no sooner had she given her consent than that huge man who had behaved as if he were a parson had appeared, as if by magic. And then that last detail, so clear and yet so improbable, that told her it
had
been a dream—the way MacMinn, of all people, had been standing there as one of the witnesses. MacMinn, who had been her mother's coachman back in the days when her mother could afford such a luxury and who'd always been so kind to her.

But it disturbed her to remember the joy with which her dream self had agreed to wed the Dark Lord's heir. The virgins' sickness must have penetrated even into her dreams. At least she hoped it
was
the virgin's sickness, for if it wasn't, her wound must have got much worse, and the inflammation from it reached her brain.

She wished she could ask Lord Ramsay about it, in his capacity as her physician, but how could she tell him what she'd dreamed? She could just imagine his reaction if he found out that the daughter of the woman he called the harlot was dreaming of trapping him into marriage.

But when she finally found the courage to open her eyes, the first sight that met them was that of Lord Ramsay himself, sprawled out asleep in an uncomfortable wooden chair beside her bed. His head was tipped back, his mouth open, his long legs thrust out before him.

Fear stabbed through her gut. She must have become feverish if he'd watched by her bedside all night, and if so, it must be delirium that explained her troubling dream. Her earlier sense of having been reprieved vanished. Her wound must have gone bad. Perhaps the lack of pain in her leg didn't signify that it was better. Perhaps it had stopped hurting because the nerves were dead.

“Lord Ramsay—” She spoke quietly, hoping not to awaken him too suddenly, but even so, at her words he jerked awake in the chair. “Was I so ill during the night?”

“Ill? No. Why do you ask?”

She felt herself redden, but couldn't bring herself to mention her dream. “Why else would you have spent the night watching by my bedside unless you still feared for my life?”

An odd look filled his handsome features, but all he said was “Your wound is healing well. Well enough, that if you're up to it, we could resume our journey after you've broken your fast.”

So perhaps she really was better, for he certainly had relapsed into his usual taciturn manner, and had ceased lavishing on her those caring looks that had so disturbed her the previous day. Indeed, no sooner had he informed her of his plans than he had stood and stalked out of her chamber, leaving her alone.

She was glad she'd said nothing about her wild dream of marrying him. Given his mood this morning it would have been a serious mistake.

B
ut she received another shock when she limped down the stairway to the taproom. For the first person she saw as she entered it was none other than MacMinn, who was seated at the bar, smoking a long clay pipe and looking so real that she couldn't dismiss his appearance as the figment of a dream.

Seeing her enter, MacMinn hailed her, “Guid mornin', Lady Ramsay!”

Had the events of the past evening been real?
She made her way over to him, hardly knowing what to think.

“Aye, Mistress Zoe, to think ye've become a lady. I'm right proud of ye, I am, and to think that I knew ye when you were but a little thing, no taller than that.” He held his hand out to demonstrate. Then, perhaps in response to the look of consternation that must be apparent on her face, he demanded, “He didna treat you roughly, did he?”

She shook her head, not sure what her old friend might be alluding to.

“No, he's not that kind.” MacMinn sounded relieved, “He's a gentleman for all his mystic airs—not like the auld laird at all. He'll keep you safe.”

But before she could ask him to explain, he pushed away from the bar and stood up, giving her one last look. “That's a load off my mind, I'll tell ye. But all's well that ends well, as they say. So I'll be off, now. Mind ye”—he raised one finger to his lips—“dinnae let on a word to yer fine new husband that you saw me. Mum's the word. Give him some time to get used to his sweet new wife. Do ye ken me, lassie? Not a word about meeting me here. It's important.”

She nodded dumbly, her sleepy mind still trying to puzzle out how her old friend could be standing before her bathed in the misty sunlight of a Scottish morning. But before she could ask him anything else, he tipped his battered hat and was off, leaving her alone in the empty taproom.

I
t got worse. She could no longer cling to the idea that she was in the clutches of a walking delirium when the maid who'd come to clean her chamber giggled and asked her if her new husband was as virile as he was comely, only to answer her own question by saying, “I daresay it will all come out in the wash.” The girl curtseyed, still giggling, and made a hasty exit.

She must have really married him. Everyone seemed to believe it.

Zoe tore the sheet off the bed, wondering what else might have happened while she'd been lost in what she had supposed to be a dream, but to her relief the sheet was as spotless as sheets in an inn could ever be. She wondered what the maid would make of that.

With growing dismay, she packed the few things she'd brought in with her and made her way out to the courtyard. Could Lord Ramsay
really
have married her?

She recalled how, when she'd confronted him the previous night and demanded to know if the bizarre events she'd sleepwalked through were real, he'd avoided her question. All she could remember him saying was “It will be all right.”

Fury surged up within her. Things would
never
be all right, not if he'd tricked her into marrying him while she was under his spell. But it made no sense. Why would he go to such lengths to wed himself to the daughter of the woman who had killed his sister? And even if her mother had
not
played such a fatal role in his life, why would a man like him want to marry
her
? He was a titled lord. In his veins ran the noble blood of his august ancestors. She was only the by-blow of a woman of the town. She might pride herself that her veins, too, ran with the noble blood of her father, the duke. But no one except herself had ever been impressed by that.

So why would Lord Ramsay have bound himself to her in marriage—a sacred union that would be indissoluble once it was consummated? A crazy voice within her whispered he'd done it for love. She ignored it. That was virgin's sickness talking. And though it told her what she wanted to hear, she knew better than to believe it.

She clung to the memory of the white expanse of sheet that had covered the inn room bed. Whatever the explanation, it wasn't too late to undo what Lord Ramsay's madness had led him to do the previous night. And she'd make sure he undid it, no matter how great a magician he might prove to be.

S
he waited until they were jouncing down the rutted track that passed for a road in this part of Scotland before confronting him, though it had been difficult to restrain herself when she'd first encountered him in the inn's common room. The way he'd avoided her eyes when she'd hobbled into the room made his guilt plain, as did the way she caught him peering at her face intently when he thought she couldn't see him.

But when, after what felt like centuries, they were alone in the chaise, she let fly. “It wasn't a dream, then, was it?”

“No.” At least he had the decency to look abashed.

“Then one of us must be insane, and I wager it isn't me. I should have believed you when you told me your family was mad.”

“Not mad,” he corrected her. “Accursed.”

“Accursed indeed. At the inn they seemed to believe you had married me.”

“I did.”

“But that's infamous! Surely I didn't agree to such a thing?”

His eyelashes dropped as he looked down in expression of penitence. But all he said was “You did agree. How else could we have been wed? The law requires it.”

“Then I am mad too, and we are well suited. But why should you have wed
me
, the daughter of the woman you have reason to hate more than anyone else in the world? Surely you don't wish me to believe that upon arriving at the Scottish border you were overwhelmed with the desire to unite yourself to me?”

He shook his head, his expression still penitent.

“Did you discover I was an heiress?” she said sarcastically. “Did my father, the duke, die, and leave me all his fortune? It seems unlikely as he's never before taken any notice of me, but I'm at a loss to think why else you would have taken me to Scotland and forced me into marriage.”

“You aren't an heiress.”

“Then why did you marry me? Why?”

“It was the Dark Lord's last wish that I do so. He's dead. He died a few days before we left London, but before he died he sent a messenger to tell me I must take you to wife.”

So that was why.
She was unprepared for how disappointed she felt. His marrying her had nothing to do with who she was at all. He'd only done it because it was the last wish of his beloved teacher—though if that
was
his final charge to his disciple, the man must have been raving. There was no other explanation for it.

A wave of sadness washed over her. It told her, too late, of the foolish hope she'd been cherishing in some hidden corner of her heart that Ramsay
had
been motivated by something akin to the shameful passion she couldn't stop feeling for him. But now that her hope had been exposed to the light, she saw how very foolish it had been. The power of the virgin's sickness must be even greater than she'd feared if it had made her dream, for even a moment, that Lord Ramsay could have married her for love.

She ran her fingers nervously over the cracked leather that padded the wall of the hired chaise. “
Why
did the Dark Lord wish us wed? What reason did he give you?”

He bit his upper lip uneasily. “I only know what his messenger told me—that I must wed you if I wished to inherit the Dark Lord's powers.”

She forced herself to let no hint of her disappointment show. “Was that why he commanded you to bring me to the island and insisted that I be a virgin?”

“So it would seem.” He spoke as if he were miles away. As if the thing he'd done to her was of no importance.

How
had
he done it? Had he drugged her? It seemed unlikely. He'd insisted he'd brought no drugs with him, and even if he'd lied, she'd swallowed no potion. How, then, could he have so bent her to his will?

It must have been the spell—the spell that had allowed him to cut into her living flesh without her knowledge. She struggled to remember what had happened in the inn bedroom after she had fallen into that enchanted sleep, but all that came to her was the sight of his handsome face with its long, sultry lashes, framed by the waves of russet hair that made him look so much like the saint he wished to be, turned up toward hers, filled with pleading.

Her hands balled into fists and she rounded on him. “You used the spell to make me accept you, didn't you?”

He nodded, looking shockingly vulnerable, as if her anger had smashed through the mask of control he fought so hard to maintain. But he made no attempt to defend himself, but just sat, shoulders slumped, allowing her to rage, looking as if he'd just sit and absorb it until at last she ran out of words.

Scolding him would be futile. She bit her lower lip to keep herself from speaking and matched his silence with her own, giving no sign of her agitation except for the way that her hand couldn't stop twisting the folds of her skirt.

When he finally spoke, his musical voice was unnaturally calm. “I had no choice. If I didn't wed you, the power of the Dark Lord would have seeped back into the earth. How could I stand by and allow all those centuries of wisdom to vanish? I had to use the spell to make you wed me. You wouldn't have done it, otherwise, would you?”

Deep within her the virgin's sickness shrieked its answer:
Yes!
But she was strong enough to ignore it. If he had asked her to wed him, she wouldn't have let herself be swayed by that raucous voice. She knew better than to bind herself to a loveless marriage, and that was all she could expect with Ramsay—no matter what his teacher had mumbled as he died. It
must
have been his spell that made her accept him. There was no other explanation.

She'd never again doubt that his powers were real—but, oh, what a price they both would pay for his use of them. She let her tone convey her bitterness. “You gave no thought, as you worked your magic, how selfish it was to wed me just to please this Dark Lord of yours. Did it mean nothing to you that I must be bound to you forever?”

“You forget,” he said quietly. “I am bound to
you
forever, too.”